Kathleen Molloy

Olga of Toronto got me thinking about writing about writing.  I’ve spent the last year blogging about what I am reading but little about what I am writing, or how I write it, or when or why.

She has inspired me to start a feature on this blog On Writing.

To start, I’ll answer a question that many new parents post to me: When do you have TIME to write??

I don’t.

I steal a few hours between when the kids go to bed and I drop my head on my pillow. This could mean 2 hours per night for three nights a week. But that doesn’t mean that I am writing that whole time. I freely admit to goofing off, surfing the net, doing banking, even shopping on line.  I might get a blog blurb in and about a good 40 minutes of actually writing or editing if I am at my desk in my office.

If I’m writing in the armchair in the living room, lulled by the glow of the pellet stove, and the dogs are not underfoot, and there are no newspapers lounging around waiting to be read or burnt, then I can usually write steady for about two hours. Hiding out in a corner in the living room puts me closer to the pantry and the snack shelf. So make that: 2 hours minus 1 trip for a snack and 1 trip for a glass of port.

However, if I am writing in my bed in my pjs and the house is quiet and I have no magazine’s piled beside my table lamp and the cat is curled on my feet …. I will easily exhaust 5 hours minus refill s of roobios tea and short hops to the toilet.

I’m good in bed. I mean, I’m prolific when I write in bed, but my beau detests it when I work there. He’s old school; he thinks beds are for sleeping and making love. So if he hops into bed while I am finishing off a bit of work, he will launch into a discussion about the family budget. Or he will call his distributor to leave voice-mail purchase orders. Or he will read aloud the bank statements for his company.  That’s my cue to log off to nod off.

To answer plainly, I write in stolen moments.

And speaking of national treasures….From the  www.portraits.gc.ca website:The Portrait Gallery of Canada is once again opening the doors to Vault 34 at the Gatineau Preservation Centre to provide the public with free guided tours of the national portrait collection. Here’s another chance to see an exciting selection of works including a recently-acquired sculpture of David Suzuki by prominent Canadian artist Joe Fafard. Call early to reserve a space! Every Sunday, from February 15 to March 22, 2009 inclusive, there will be two free, bilingual guided tours at 11:00 a.m. and at 2:00 p.m. Each tour has a capacity of 15 people. A free shuttle to and from the Preservation Centre in Gatineau will depart from Library and Archives Canada at 395 Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa.For reservations, please phone: 613-944-1741
Age: 12+ (ID required)Inside Vault 34 Guided Tour Returns!Every Sunday from February 15 to March 22, 2009
11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.
Library and Archives Canada Preservation Centre
Gatineau, Quebec

  From the RedFlagDeals blog: 

The Museum Arts Pass (MAP) will be available at all 99 Toronto Public Library Branches starting March 7, 2009. You can get the Museum Arts Pass for institutions such as the AGO, The Bata Shoe Museum, Black Creek Pioneer Village, Gardiner Museum, the Textile Museum of Canada and more. Each MAP is good for one museum in particular and each library will have a limited number of passes for each museum in any given week. All Toronto library patrons with a valid adult library card will be entitled to borrow one pass per week and each pass will admit one family (generally one or two adults and up to four children). You can borrow passes to any of the participating venues, and you can borrow them more than once. The passes cannot be renewed or reserved and are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.  

———-Local museums in westen Quebec and eastern Ontario also loan the family pass for museums. Pop into the Wakfield library to sign one out and treat yourself to a museum tour. 

Kiddo #1 has always enjoyed writing stories. This morning I discovered that we have a song writer in the family too. I was serenaded with the following:

“Mommy, I don’t love it when you tell me what to do

And when put me in the time-out too

And when you count in your mean voice

But I love you, I love you, yes I do.”

I am now officially hooked on Book Radio. As I cruise around western Quebec and eastern Ontario I set my satellite radio to stations dedicated to talking about books. Books read over the air, author interviews, book club discussions, book to film / film to book, …I can’t get enough of it and I continually flip back and forth between bookish broadcasts.

I love it.

Most of it.

Okay, some of it.

To be frank, I love the idea that people are talking about books more than the actual reading of some of the books.

Sorry to admit it, hateful to suggest it, but a lot of the books read on the air are rarely the type that I would sign out from the library. I find some of them… how should I put this… LAZY.

For example, last week I rolled my eyes when the narrator wasted “languid” in an otherwise perfectly good sentence. When the narrative read “languid” again four lines later I flipped the channel.

                  “His languid gaze…” and then

                  “The languid breeze…”

I try to not be a word snob. Yet,  I do like to read / hear words that are well played.  The “languid Federal Budget” tells me more of a story behind the story than a spiritless gaze or a lackluster breeze. I want to be challenged while listening to a story in the same way I am challenged while reading a story.

But is this a case of Beggers Can’t be Chosers? While I appreciate having access to book radio, I hate having to stomach lazy writing.

Please don’t tell me I am doomed to suffer languid listening every time I turn the radio on. I encourage you to lobby your favourite bookish radio station to slip some CanLit into their play list.

And if I ever use “languid” in a story, please feel free to frown openly. If I use it twice, go ahead and scold my proof readers. Linda Erskine, Kae McColl, and Anne Gros know better than to let me get away with that.

President Obama has left Ottawa, smiling.

“No protectionism” Prime Minister Harper said of trade relations.

“No protectionism” President Obama echoed.

 I’m not saying that I don’t believe Obama … but let’s just say that I won’t believe him until he and his compatriots stops calling cheddar cheese “American cheese”.

In preparation of Freedom to Read week (Feb. 22 to 28) the Canadian Library Association has been busy sharing lists of challenged books, books that some readers have raised complaints about or demanded removal from shelves.

Naturally, some libraries buckle and nonchalantly slide the book off the shelf and into the shadows. Other libraries such as Alberta’s Strathmore municipal library have set up a display corralling a handful of the books that some readers have taken umbrage with.

You may have read the on-line interview with librarian Susan Oxford in which she tries to put herself in the shoes of the offended reader while at the same time suggesting :

“To not have the freedom to read what you would like to read…  it would be like living under a different power,” said Oxford. “I guess the freedom to read is entrenched in the whole idea of democracy.

 I invite you to entrench yourself in your local library this week to celebrate your freedom to read alongside your favourite librarian.

It is cheating; I know. I snapped up three cassettes of Canadian short stories and intended to include them in the 2^nd Canadian Book Challenge.  Books on tape should count, so why not short stories on tape?

The collection is:“Emergent Voices: CBC Canadian Literary Awards Stories 1979-1999″.

When does an emergent voice cease to be emerging? The works in this collection were created between ‘79-99 and the collected assembled in 1999. A trade paperback version was produced by Goose Lane Editions. Have these authors graduated from emergent to made-it?

Let’s look at the line up:

-          Janice Kulyk Keefer

-          Shauna Singh Baldwin

-          Carol Windley

-          Gwendolyn MacEwen

-          W.D. Valgardson-          Bill Gaston

-          Gail Anderson-Dardatz

-          Gayla Reid

-          Ernest Havemann

-          Irena Freidman Karafilly

-          Michael Ondaatje

Many names are familiar.

In 2001 writer/critic Raywat Deonanda prepared a review of the collection for Prairie Fire and reprinted it on his site The Podium. It is worth a look; Deonanda speaks to many of the stereotypes deployed in CanLit, deployed and exploited.

It is a lovely collection with Gaston’s piece standing out.

But I ask the question again – at what point does a Canadian writer graduate from emergent to made-it?

Book lovers on Nova Scotia’s south shore are gearing up for the big Hebbville library book sale in celebration of Freedom to Read Week February 23 to 27. 

Thousands of books at $5 per box will be carted off by Canadian readers. Freedom to Read Week, is an annual event encouraging Canadians reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, — a freedom guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 Freedom to Read Week is organized by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council and celebrated by book lovers across Canada.

In the Feb 2009 issue of Canadian consumer magazine Protéger Vous, readers got a glimpse at the merits of both the  Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.  Now Canadian libraries can exploit these electronic devices to recuperate late fees from book borrowers.

What are the merits of both the Kindle and the Reader? Here is the quick and dirty summary of the two:

Kindle = $359 US

-          Sold in the US

-          Downloads books, newspapers, mags

-          Can be wireless

-          Stores up to 200 books

-          Access to Amazon’s 190,000 titles

-           Sony Reader $240 US 

-          Limited to  English in Canada

-          Doesn’t download  newspapers and mags

-          Not  entirely wireless

-          Not entirely compatible with Mac

-          Stores 160 books

-          Access to eBook’s 40,000 titles

Now why should Canadian libraries get excited about these electronic book devices? Simply put, if a library patron borrows one from the library, she is borrowing between 160-200 books at a time. If the reader keeps the Reader out for one week longer than agreed to, she should pay out :

160 books  x 7 days x .25 late charge per day = $280.

Two hundred eighty dollars is a sizeable down payment on a second Reader!